The photos below come from a recent visit to the battlefields of the greater Richmond/Petersburg Area. With the exception of the first few from Gaines Mill which was important to the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, most of these battles were part of the 1864 Overland Campaign. This long, brutal and bloody series of battles would eventually lead to the capture of Petersburg and the fall of Richmond which set the stage for the surrender of the Army of the Potomac at Appomattox. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater of the war through photos and brief histories
Richmond was not the original capital of the Confederacy, but became the capital after Virginia seceded from the Union in April of 1861. Richmond and neighboring Petersburg were major industrial hubs with rail lines connecting to points near and far and the James River to further move supplies in and out of the area. The rivers surrounding the city made defending it somewhat easier as well. Because of the strategic importance of Richmond, it would be the focus of several major campaigns during the war.
Our visit started at Gaines Mill Farm which saw some of the worst fighting of the Seven Days Battle during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. This battle was the first in which Robert E. Lee had command of the Army of Northern Virginia following the wounding of Joseph Johnston. Lee’s ability to hold off George McClellan and his Union forces would direct the war away from Richmond and back to Northern Virginia to Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville which we visited several weeks ago…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Fort Stevens in Washington D.C. - site of the only battle fought inside D.C. during the Civil War, and of Battleground National Cemetery up the street. The final photo came from Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring, MD. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater of the war through photos and brief histories.
After overcoming Union General Lew Wallace and his men at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9th, 1864,, Confederate General Jubal Early continued his march towards the Capital of Washington D.C. The Confederate soldiers made the march in two days. Thankfully, Wallace had delayed the Confederates long enough for General Grant to send reinforcements via steamship from Richmond who soon took up position in the northern section of the circle of forts surrounding the city. Fort Stevens guarded the 7th Street Pike, one of the main roads into the city (now Georgia Avenue).
The armies exchanged fire on July 11th and 12th, but Early felt the city was too heavily defended to mount a full scale attack. Both sides lost men in the skirmishing, but casualties were relatively light by Civil War standards. Notably, President Abraham Lincoln came to Fort Stevens on July 12th with his wife, Mary. The two came under fire, the only time in American history that a sitting president was in the direct line of enemy fire. A memorial stone on the parapet marks that location today. That evening, Early would withdraw his men through Maryland and cross the Potomac back into Virginia, marking the end of the final Confederate attack into the North. They paused briefly en-route to bury 17 of their dead comrades at Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Monocacy National Battlefield Park just south of Frederick Maryland - site of the “Battle that Saved Washington”. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater of the war through photos and brief histories.
The Battle of Monocacy is a bit of an outlier in that it wasn’t really a major battle of the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, but a minor one with major implications. While Generals Grant and Lee were engaged in the final grappling of the war around Petersburg, south of Richmond, Lee wanted a distraction to pull some of Grant’s army away. He attempted this by sending General Jubal Early to go on the offensive and attack into Union territory, the third Confederate invasion of the North during the war. Early was sent with 15,000 men to threaten Washington D.C. and, if possible, to raid the prison camp at Point Lookout and free the Confederate soldiers being held there. Lee also knew that a presidential election was looming and he hoped that another invasion of the North might bring about the defeat of Lincoln and a favorable end to the long and brutal war.
Early’s army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland on the 4th of July, 1864 and marched past Sharpsburg, the site of the Battle of Antietam two years earlier. You can’t march 15,000 infantry troops across a state without anyone noticing, and word quickly got to General Lew Wallace who was then the Union commander in Baltimore. Wallace gathered what men he could muster and quickly set off towards the west. Thinking quickly, Wallace decided to head towards Monocacy Junction, just south of Frederick, Maryland. He didn’t know where the Confederates were headed, but this point would allow his troops to defend the Georgetown Pike to Washington, the National Road to Baltimore and the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Line. If he got there first, he could strategically place his men along the Monocacy River and defend all three of those routes which crossed the river at that point. He arrived in time to dig in and establish a line of defense.
The photos below come from a recent visit to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Battlefield Park, which also includes the Battles of Chancelorsville and The Wilderness. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories.
It had been almost a year since the horrific battle of Gettysburg, and in the interim President Lincoln had turned command of the Union Army over to General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant would lay out a plan to attack the confederacy on many fronts including Sherman’s march towards Atlanta and an attack on Mobile, and Grant himself would ride with General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac. Their goal was to bring the war back to Virginia and keep the pressure on General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. This Overland Campaign would be a war of attrition and would bring the war to new levels of horror but ultimately lead to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
On May 4th, 1864 the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River and engaged Lee’s army in an area called The Wilderness. Apparently the area today bears little resemblance to what it did at the time when new growth underbrush made movement difficult, artillery less effective and confusion the norm. Fierce fighting took place on the scattered farms in the area which allowed for some open space in which to maneuver, but most of the battle took place in the dense forest. On May 6th, the Union Army had taken the upper hand and Lee’s men were in grave danger of being overrun on the widow Tapp’s farm. In a scene from the movies, Longstreet’s reinforcements arrived at just the right moment and Lee was prepared to lead them into battle himself, but the Confederates wouldn’t allow it and moved him quickly to the rear. After two days of heavy fighting neither side had gained a decisive victory. Unlike his predecessors, Grant didn’t pull back but rather pushed forward, ordering a night march towards the town of Spotsylvania Court House. His plan was to get between Lee and the Confederate Capital at Richmond. Sensing this move, Lee ordered his men to move that night as well.
The Battle of Gettysburg which took place from July 1st-3rd, 1863 would be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 170,000 men would clash over those three hot days in July and over 50,000 would end up dead, captured, wounded or missing. While both armies were looking for a fight, neither expected it to be in this tiny Pennsylvania town.
After his dramatic victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, General Lee decided to once again push north into Union territory. He wanted a decisive victory on Northern soil to try and force President Lincoln to the negotiating table. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia north, crossed the Potomac River and moved through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The Union’s Army of the Potomac, still under the command of General Hooker, pursued. By the end of June, General George Meade had replaced Hooker at the helm…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Gettysburg National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest and most well known battles of the war. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories
It’s been a warm week here in D.C. – summer has definitely arrived. I’ve had some nice days to get out and explore the city this week, but also some hot and humid ones and a few epic thunderstorms as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced summer in our nation’s capital, and there are definitely pluses and minuses. I will say that the lack of traffic anywhere at any time makes the heat of summer a little more tolerable. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, that lack of traffic definitely makes for cleaner air and clearer skies – something my camera sees even more than I do. That is one of the plusses of the situation. We’ve been enjoying some summer fruit too, which is one of the best things about summer anywhere. We’ve had beautiful cherries, watermelon, strawberries and others and I’m looking forward to peaches very soon.
Last Friday my stepfather made some wonderful homemade pizzas and we sat in the basement and played some games and listened to some music while we chowed down on a couple of pies. It was another great Forget-About-It Friday, which we are grateful for. This coming week we will tap our homebrew and see how it turned out, and begin our next batch as well – an American Cream Ale. I’m looking forward to having a taste and to keeping the brewing going while I’m home. It’s fun and there’s a (hopefully) fine finished product at the end. After the cream ale, I want to try something a little more complicated now that I’m getting my brewing confidence back up.
The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. My mom spent Saturday cooking up a storm and we had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night as well. Sunday I spent some time reading my new (to me) book about the Gettysburg Address which I’m really enjoying. I also got some photos edited and published from our trip to Antietam last week, and got some writing done as well. It was a pretty relaxing weekend all around, but it felt good to accomplish a few things along the way.
After being turned back south after the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched his army back to Virginia. Union General George McClellan was replaced by General Ambrose Burnside to command the Army of the Potomac, and President Lincoln urged Burnside to pursue the Army of Northern Virginia deep into the state and attack the Confederate Capital at Richmond. The major obstacle lying in their way was the Rappahannock River.
Burnside arrived at Stafford Heights overlooking the river and the small town of Fredericksburg in mid-November, 1862. He had sent orders to have pontoons at the ready to provide a means of bringing his army rapidly across the river. Tragically for Burnside and his men, the pontoons didn’t arrive for several weeks. Instead of crossing the river in boats or rafts, he chose to wait for the pontoons. By the time they got there, Confederate troops had dug in on the high ground south of the city called Marye’s Heights and behind a stone wall along a sunken road to the front of this position.
Union engineers worked through the night of December 10th to assemble the pontoon bridge, but their progress was slowed by Mississippi sharpshooters in town. A small group of Union soldiers crossed the river in boats and fought a battle to secure the streets of the town. They finally secured the town in late afternoon on the 11th, but it was winter and the daylight soon gave out. The bridge would be completed and most of the army would cross it on December 12th.
Antietam National Battlefield was the sight of the bloodiest day in American History and one of the best known battle of the American Civil War. Along Antietam Creek just north of the tiny town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, 100,000 soldiers marched into battle on September 17th, 1862. By the end of that day almost 23,000 were dead, wounded or missing.
After a Confederate victory at the 2nd Manassas/Bull Run, General Robert E. Lee pushed into the North for the first time. The Virginia countryside had been ravaged during the first year of the war, and Lee wanted to give it time to heal, plus a decisive victory in the North might bring President Lincoln to the negotiating table.
On September 15th, 1862, Lee crossed the Potomac River into Maryland and dug in along the high ground west of Antietam Creek. Union forces under Commanding General George McClellan moved in from the east. At dawn on September 17th, the battle began…
The photos below come from a cloudy visit to Antietam National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest day in the American Civil War. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories.
